Article October 11, 2010 Issue

ANXIETY ATTACKS HEALED

BY BARBARA LAGEMAN

I WAS NOT RAISED with any religious beliefs, but even as a child, I wanted to know more about God. When I was 11, I asked some Methodist friends of mine if I could go to Sunday School with them. I saw their love for church, and there was a certain peacefulness about them. Learning about religion was largely curiosity on my part, but even back then I was looking for something beyond the limits of human life.

As time went on, I visited other churches with other friends. I got a lot out of these visits, and slowly my early concept of a God who was loving and would help me became more developed and refined.

Christian Science came into my life at a time of desperation. I'd married a man who'd been raised in Christian Science, and both his sisters and his parents were active church members. My husband was no longer attending church, but even though that was the case, I realize now what an important role his expression of Christian Science played in our lives. Because of my lack of understanding, at first I'd thought of Christian Science as a flight from reality, an unwillingness to truly engage with life. For this reason, I was critical of my in-laws. I recognized, however, that my husband was an honorable man, and I respected the fact that he was faithful to the main tenets of his religion.